"You are now live." The voice in my head said.

"Thanks, John." I took a minute to gather my thoughts. John had offered to simply scan the account of the "expedition" from my mind, but I was visually oriented and often relayed pictures instead of a coherent narrative. Besides, nobody needed to see the overlay of frustration and exhaustion that accompanied those images.

"I could present the enture proof to you, but we have very short days here on Kepler 22-b, and we are a busy species. Suffice to say this: I am extremely disappointed to announce that our ancestors around T minus 3000 years were so upset by global warming that they formed a suicide pact."

John buzzed in my ear and asked me to wait for 2.3 seconds - there were suddenly a lot more people listening to the broadcast. I swallowed.

"Our theory is this - they were scientifically advanced enough to know that they were a burden to the planet. So, the young Homo sapiens, who acknowledged that they were in maximum number, decided to voluntarily reduce their size. Invariably the few who took on this burden were shown, by recorded proof of their deeds, to be predisposed to lack of good judgement and recklessness through a combination of genetics and upbringing. These people took it upon themselves to save the species - and they did this by ending their lives through a series of risky stunts. This also had the added benefit of not passing on their defective genes to the others. At the same time it allowed the suicides to exist in a blaze of glory.

"The primary method would be to show themselves on social forums doing said stunts before ending their lives. These people were celebrated and cursed in equal measure by their contemporaries. Their adopted cry was Y-O-L-O, pronounced "Yoh-loh" which we theorize was an acronym for "Ye Others Live On" and encouraged the survivors to go forth and save the earth. We as a species must salute these remarkable persons.

"At the same time, our data says that they may be misguided, since not enough people were involved in the pact to actually affect the earth's population. In fact, a limiting factor in this might be that most of these persons, like birds of plumage, were involved in such acts for the social glory, but since social fora were rarer at the time, the trend did not catch on. Our resident psychologists tell us that this conforms with their view of Homo sapiens as a narcissistic species..." I wrapped it up and sighed with relief.

"Very convincing," Sophie patted my shoulder in approval. I smiled at her. "You think we're doing the right thing?"

"You bet," she murmured, "Nobody wants to think their thirty-times great grandfather was an idiot who drank and drove. This will put a positive spin on things."

"You're all about the publicity, aren't you? Making everything sound better than it is. Allowing us to lie to ourselves."

"You said it best, Doc" she winked, "Homo sapiens are a narcissistic species."

Since I had been granted a billion units in funding for that very reason, I thought it best not to argue with her.